


Closet Psychology 101

by juliairian



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Closet, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Bisexual John, Crack, Humor, Innuendo, John on the offensive, M/M, Matchmaker Mike Stamford, Molly Hooper pulls rank, Sherlock is a Brat, Sherlock lets him know, St. Bart's, Trapped In A Closet, voice sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 18:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16203125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliairian/pseuds/juliairian
Summary: I've never done a fanfiction writing prompt before. Whee!“Shove over!”“No! I was hiding in this closet first.”- Writing Prompt from Daily AUFirst posted on tumblr in a late night bout of writing: https://julia-irian.tumblr.com/post/178740886249/shove-over-no-i-was-hiding-in-this-closet





	Closet Psychology 101

“And, yeah, the labs,” Mike finished lamely.

John looked around the empty room. “A bit different from my day.”

“Hm, that’s strange, I thought he might be here,” Mike mused under his breath.

John frowned. “What?”

“Nothing. Come along, I’ll show you his latest experiment!”

“All right,” John muttered and limped after his old friend. Perhaps stopping for coffee and the very vague and slim chance on a flat-share had been a bit of a wild goose chase after all. He wished he could just sit down and not talk to anyone, not think about anything... 

Mike pushed open a side door in the lab that led to another smaller room. The equipment in here was a great deal more messy. There were paper notes lying around without any order John could see, and he thought he faintly smelled mould. 

“Wow, what kind of a mad professor is running this part of the lab?” John scoffed and poked at some of the debris. He quickly pulled his hand back when the debris began to poke back.

Strangely, Mike only gave him a funny look. “Well, see here, John,” he began, but didn’t get much further. A voice from the main lab startled him into silence.

“Anyone in here? I’m locking up,” a female voice shouted carefully.

“Shit,” Mike swore quietly. He lumbered over to John and quickly shoved him towards a row of large closets along the wall. “Just a minute,” he shouted.

“Wha--?” John gaped as he stumbled along. He accidentally dropped his cane, but Mike didn’t give him a chance to pick it up. 

“Shhh,” he hissed furiously. “I’m not officially allowed to bring people. There was an incident the other day and since then...” Mike winced.

“Mike, is that you?” The female voice was coming closer to the door, sounding a bit concerned.

“Yeah, it’s me, I’m just--” Mike shouted back, hastily pulling open a closet door. He pushed John into it with some force, and all John could do was gape like a goldfish.

“You are not seriously--” he muttered.

“Shh! I’ll get you out later.”

And with that, John Watson found a metal door shut in his face. He was hiding in a bloody closet. Correction. He was hiding in a bloody closet in a mad scientist’s lab so that his friend-more-like-acquaintance wouldn’t get into trouble. Christ. John thought that he better get an affordable flat-share out of this at some point to make it worth his while.

The woman’s steps entered the lab and she had a brief conversation with Mike. His soon-no-longer-a-friend placated her amicably and they left together.

Mike had said he’d come and get John afterwards. How long would he have to wait? The closet was big enough to stand in, just about. The metal was sturdy and John leaned back, resting his leg, wishing he could stretch out on the floor or something. He waited a few minutes, actually enjoying the darkness and silence. Mike’s chattiness had a tendency to get on his nerves after a while.

Finally, he deemed it enough time to save the good graces of a former colleague and made to open the door. Suddenly, he heard noises. 

Hasty steps, heavy, probably a man’s came rapidly closer. John frowned. That didn’t sound like Mike at all. The door to the smaller lab swung open and the steps neared John’s closet. Suddenly, the door was pulled open forcefully and another body practically fell into him. The door clicked shut again.

“What the hell?” John was pushed back into the wall by a man so tall he had to almost fold himself in half. This meant that John received an elbow to his ribs, his feet were stepped on and his head connected rather painfully with a bony shoulder. To make matters worse, the man seemed to have absolutely no qualms about barging in like this.

“Shove over,” he hissed.

“No! I was hiding in this closet first!” John blinked, suddenly realising what he’d  actually just said.

But the man didn’t care. “Shut up,” he grumbled.

Suddenly, a voice cried out from the next room. “Sherlock Holmes!” It sounded like the woman from earlier. Had she brought Mike back?

The man next to (half on top of) John went deathly still. John stared at his back in bewilderment.

“Sherlock Holmes, I know you’re in there!” The woman had entered the smaller lab again. “God what is it today?!” John heard the clicking of heels come closer. “When are you finally going to start behaving like an adult and stop running away whenever there’s a problem?!”

She seemed to be speaking directly to the closet. John took this as his cue to leave. He tried to open his mouth or move, but the man in front of him seemed to have anticipated this. He pressed backwards suddenly so that John found himself with a face full of coat and hardly any air to breathe. 

“If you’re gonna steal my things, you should really hide somewhere less conspicuous,” the woman said with a sigh. “Very well, perhaps this’ll teach you a lesson.”

John felt a surge of panic rise in his throat as he gasped quietly for breath. He head a tinkling sound and froze when metal connected with metal. Something turned with a click. The woman had  _locked the closet_. She’d locked. The bloody. Closet.

“Have fun picking your way out of this one. In the future, don’t nick my parts,” she chided with an air of resignation. The heels clicked away, the door closed. A few moments later, she was gone.

Well, fuck.

But first things first. John shoved forward, hard, and sucked in a deep breath. “Get off, you bastard,” he swore and felt a stab of satisfaction when the man let out a grunt as he was shoved into the sturdy metal door.

“Ow,” he complained.

“Suits you right,” John grumbled.

“That was entirely unnecessary,” he heard a deep, gravelly baritone in the darkness. 

“As unnecessary as breathing?” John twisted a little to the side.

“Precisely,” the man said without any trace of sarcasm. John scoffed and wriggled some more.

“What  _are_  you doing?”

“What do you think,” John grunted and pushed the man aside. He was now leaning on one of the side-walls of the closet and the man was leaning against the opposite side. Their legs had ended up crossing so that one of John’s legs was now stuck between another pair of legs that seemed to go on forever. In the small sliver of emergency light that slanted through a crack in the door, he made out a silhouette. 

The man - apparently one Sherlock Holmes - was wearing a dark suit and a long, thick coat. John glanced upwards and noticed firstly the man’s head was covered in wild dark curls and secondly that this head was presently a lot closer than he’d thought. The man was definitely too tall and he had to lean forward at the hip to even fit his entire body in the closet. 

“There,” John said, feeling a little flustered, but satisfied that the position wouldn’t do his back in. It might do Sherlock Holmes’ back in but that was hardly his problem.

There was a silence. Finally, the man spoke. “Molly will let us out again. And if not, your friend Stamford will.”

“How do you...?”

“Simple. Last week, Mike tried to impress his girlfriend with his access to all the labs, including Molly’s over there.” The man shook his head apparently in the direction of the other, larger, lab. His curls brushed John’s forehead and he blinked at the sudden tickle.

“The woman ended up breaking a rather expensive microscope and Molly was, naturally, furious. She reported your friend and he had to promise not to let unauthorized people into the lab anymore. I just met them in the corridor – she looked angry but mellowed, because she didn’t discover anyone with him – he looked guilty, indicating there actually was someone with him. He shoved you in the closet when she came in and out of some strange sense of obligation to a man you clearly don’t consider a close friend, you stayed in here. Why?”

John stared into the darkness. “Excuse me?”

“Why did you stay in here?”

“I just—I don’t know,  _you appeared_!” John shook his head. “So what, you stole her microscope slides and now you had to hide? And we’re both stuck here?!”

“Hands.”

“What?!”

“I didn’t steal her microscope slides, I stole some of her hands.”

“ _Some_?!” John heard his voice tumble over itself. This was so unreal. First he got stuck in a closet, and now he was stuck in a closet with a man who stole peoples’ hands.

The man sighed, clearly loathe to explain himself. “Molly is the head pathologist. She has access to body parts for scientific research. Sometimes, she lets me borrow them for experiments,” he said, sounding bored.

“You… experiment on body parts.”

“Yes.”

“Only this time you borrowed without her permission.”

“Ye—yes.” The man hesitated.

“Right.”

“So is she your boss?”

Strangely, the man laughed. “Certainly not. I am, shall we say, a freelancer.”

“A freelance pathologist?” John’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness and he slowly made out the man’s features and pale skin in the faint gloom.

The man sighed again. “Freelance detective.”

“Ah,” John nodded, finally understanding something. “So that’s how you worked out Mike.”

“No,” the man said without pause. “A five-year-old could have worked that out. You are, of course, confusing a random coincidence with false causality."

John gaped at him, so he simply continued with an impatient sigh. "I don’t have my particular skills  _because_  I am a detective; I am a detective  _because_  it suits my skills. Do keep up.”

John let out an incredulous laugh. “Oh, sorry,” he mocked, “I didn’t know this was a game of  _Who Am I_. I thought we were still playing  _How to get out of the BLOODY. CLOSET_.”

“Be quiet!”

John huffed. “Right, yeah, because Lord forbid anyone find us and get us out of here!”

“I’ll get us out, don’t you worry,” Sherlock Holmes said and began digging through his pockets.

“I’m not worried,” John bristled.

The man suddenly stilled and John’s hair at the back of his neck stood up. He felt a strange pair of eyes rest on him. “No, you’re really not, are you?” he murmured.

His head was so close that John could feel his breath on his cheeks. Actually, he noticed, this Sherlock guy smelled really nice. Like expensive shampoo, tea, old furniture and something chemical but sweet that he couldn’t identify. He stood still and let himself be examined, as far as he was able in the cramped space.

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

John started. “Sorry?”

“Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Um. Afghanistan. How did you know--?”

“I didn’t know, I saw. Your haircut, your voice, you’re used to receiving orders, but… also  _giving_  them. Interesting. Captain, I’d guess, and I rarely guess. Old friend of Mike’s, but not too close as evidenced by him practically forgetting about you like this—“

“He did  _not_ \--!”

Sherlock rambled on unimpeded. “…But close enough that he’d bring you here; not a date, though, so must be a colleague.  _Not authorized_  says  _former_  colleague. You trained here, so, army doctor. I only saw your face briefly, but it looked tanned. You don’t seem like the kind of guy to go sunbathing, so you’ve been abroad for the military.”

He took a breath. John was still blinking over the fact that anyone could think him Mike’s  _date_.

“Your cane was on the floor, so you have a limp of some kind. However, you haven’t shown any discomfort in that area specifically since we were trapped so you clearly forgot about it in the presence of a more pressing issue. Psychosomatic, then; that suggests trauma. Wounded in action, suntan – Afghanistan or Iraq.”

John gaped. “That was…  _amazing_.”

There was a pause. Sherlock Holmes had stopped rummaging through his pockets and now appeared to hold a few small items in his hands, metal gleaming in the sliver of light. “Do you really think so?” He sounded surprised.

“Of course. We’ve never met. And you just… knew all of that. It was extraordinary. Quite extraordinary.”

John could have sworn the man sucked in a breath. “Oh. That’s not what people usually say.”

“What do they usually say?”

“Piss off.”

And that was it, something cracked. John laughed. After a moment, he heard a deep, answering chuckle from the body in front of him. He relaxed a little.

“John Watson,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Hm? Oh.” The man paused sorting through the things in his palms. He shifted the items to one hand and shook John’s with the other. Firm grip, long, nimble fingers. “Sherlock Holmes, but you knew that already.”

“Nice to make your acquaintance, Mr. Holmes.”

“Oh, please,” Sherlock Holmes scoffed. “Aren’t we a little past that? We’re stuck in a cupboard, after all.” He pulled out a particular tool from a set of what appeared to be lock picks.  _Who just carries lock picks around like that?_ “Call me Sherlock. Mr. Holmes is my brother, and I avoid thinking about him as much as possible.”

“All right. John, then.”

Sherlock’s quick smile flashed in the sliver of light. John noted an unruly curl as it dropped onto his forehead. He was still fairly close and the fact that Sherlock had begun moving while picking the lock had not improved matters. He shoved away an elbow as it neared his kidneys. “Watch it.”

“Do you want to get out?” Sherlock ignored his efforts to remain unmaimed and went on with his tools.

After a moment, John had to ask. “Why would you say I wasn’t—I mean, why the hell would I be Mike’s date?!”

The faint slanting light illuminated one raised eyebrow. “I said you weren’t. Why would you be?”

“I don’t know,” John bristled, feeling a little uncomfortable.

Sherlock sighed. “Mike Stamford happens to be completely straight." He thought for a moment, then added, "and also he's in a relationship with that clumsy woman," as some kind of unimportant afterthought. "You might be obviously bisexual, but it is unlikely that you were his date.”

“Ex—excuse me?!” John felt his face flush.

“Oh,” Sherlock tried to straighten up in an effort to be comfortable, but only managed to wiggle a little closer to John. John got another whiff of shampoo and felt the deep voice rumble in the man’s chest. “Were you not aware of that? Sorry. Didn’t mean to spoil the surprise for you.”

“I’m, I think, I—“ John stammered, feeling like the world’s most colossal idiot. “I’m gonna shut up now,” he finished, sagging back against the wall.

“No,” Sherlock said.

“I beg your  _fucking_  pardon?” God, and a minute ago, John had thought this insane person was  _amazing_. What the hell was wrong with him?

“This is boring enough as it is. We might as well make conversation while I work. You still haven’t answered my question.”

“What question?!” John pushed back against the wall to gain some height. He failed miserably and sagged back.

“Why did you stay in the closet?” The man paused, then chuckled at himself. “And yes, I do appreciate the double entendre.”

“What— _oh_. I get it, very funny.” John felt his face grow warm again.

“Well?”

“You’re the detective,” John grumbled. “Shouldn’t you tell me why I’m in here? Seeing as you know everything else?”

“Very well,” Sherlock said and turned slightly sideways to look him up and down again.

“Oh God, no I didn’t mean—“ John groaned.

Sherlock flashed him a toothy grin. “Be careful what you wish for, Doctor.” His voice seemed to have dropped another octave, and it made something warm and heavy unfurl in his belly.

“You get angry quickly, but it dissipates just as fast as it comes. You seem to have a streak of resignation in you, probably since you were invalided home. Understandable. However, you suddenly allowed yourself to speak up and yell at a complete stranger, something that your therapist would probably have a few words to say about.”

Sherlock smiled in the darkness. “You are a straightforward kind of man, no-nonsense; yet as soon as you’re faced with the utter nonsense of this situation, you relax for what’s probably the first time this month, judging from the buried tension in your muscles. You laughed when others would have been embarrassed or put off. You’re quite the study in contradictions, Doctor. Interesting.”

He shifted around a little and John felt an arm brush his side. “You clearly crave any kind of distraction from your monotonous life, but I think this particular odd occurrence is exactly the thing you needed and you’re only just realising it. Also, there’s the physical aspect. Elevated breathing – not claustrophobia – and a certain tone of voice? You’re attracted to me – bit odd, that, but perhaps it’s because you don’t know me yet, or perhaps simply because of the suggestive position in the closet, the  _whiff of the forbidden_  – who knows what kind of correlations the subconscious cooks up?" He waved a hand dismissively. "At any rate, if you weren’t so fascinated by the weirdness, attracted to it, or so desperate for excitement, I think you would have cried for Stamford the second I entered this closet.”

Sherlock paused. John blinked, completely dumbfounded. “Yes, you were right,” Sherlock sounded pleasantly surprised. “That was much easier than asking you to explain it.”

Several things rushed through John’s head all at once. He said the first thing he managed to grasp a hold off. “You’re a right berk, you know that?”

“Oh, yes,” Sherlock grinned again. “I told you, it’s just because you don’t know me yet.”

John’s first impulse was to deny it outright. But before he could open his mouth, an inner voice just said,  _he’s right and you know it_. Somehow, that made John feel light-headed. Now that this virtual stranger had told him everything there was to know about him, there was no more need to pretend. So he was attracted to a man, big deal. He’d been attracted to plenty of men before, but he’d never confronted himself about it. Suddenly, he realised that Sherlock had told him things even his therapist had a hard time figuring out, which was amazing, truly; but he had also fired all of his ammunition and had practically nothing left to really bother John with. For the first time since he’d returned a broken civilian, John decided to throw caution to the wind and say whatever the hell popped into his head. It wasn’t like he’d ever see this Sherlock Holmes again once they were out of here.

He turned his torso just a little so that he was deliberately crowding Sherlock against the door of the closet. “So, you think I’m  _interesting_ , then?”

Sherlock froze. John saw a flutter of lashes in the tiny light beam. “Please,” he scoffed, but it didn’t sound nearly as derisive as Sherlock probably hoped. John grinned.

“You’re one to talk, you know?” He leaned over and up a little and quite deliberately spoke close to Sherlock’s ear. “You could have simply picked another locker. You saw the cane on the floor; you knew someone was in here. Anyone else would have made deliberate attempts to distance themselves in here, but you’re constantly all over me – so either you simply have no concept of personal space, or you’re actually hitting on me in the only way you can, by insulting me to my face – or  _both_. I’m guessing with that kind of attitude you don’t get many friends, yes? Come on, I took psychology 101, your behaviour is pretty textbook. You insult everyone as quickly as possible, take it for granted they hate you and then you don’t have to worry about disappointing anyone ever again. Not a bad plan, to be honest.”

John took a moment to breathe. He could feel Sherlock standing absolutely still. “So. How’s that lock coming along?”

Sherlock clicked his jaw shut. “Impatient,” he grumbled.

“Sounds familiar?”

“Stop it.”

“What?” John grinned.

Sherlock’s head whipped around and the curls tickled John’s face. “Stop trying to do… the thing. Deducing me. It doesn’t suit you.”

“How do you know what suits me, you don’t know really me,” John pointed out.

Sherlock scoffed again. “Seriously? I just laid out your entire personality for you to look at and agonize over.”

“Oh,” John said casually, “but that was just the first impression, wasn’t it? And I think I’ve agonized over myself enough in the past few months. And I get the feeling you were a little surprised just now, and nothing much surprises you, does it? Not with a mind like that.” John was actually quite proud how calm he sounded, when really, his heart was dancing the samba by now. He hadn’t felt this alive since the last time he’d been on a battlefield. This whole conversation could go all kinds of wrong any moment now; in fact, with any other person, it would already have died under the weight of societal convention, politeness and the somewhat British necessity to maintain emotional distance.

Yet with Sherlock Holmes, this seemed to be the only way to chat. Of course, the man was still too observant. He’d given up on the lock picking entirely, it seemed. “Hmm,” he mused, and turned around. With his back to the crack in the door, he blocked out any remaining light. “I have to admit, you’re quite foolishly brave. It’s refreshing. Interesting. Surprising.” With each word, Sherlock inched closer. He leaned in and John felt a smooth cheek brush his own, the eye lashes beating butterfly kisses against his skin. He flushed and simultaneously felt the inconceivable urge to laugh out of sheer happiness. “You know, John,” Sherlock breathed, lowering his voice suggestively; and oh, the way he said his  _name_. “I don’t indulge often in this sort of thing, but I have to say, you sure make being trapped in a closet a lot more  _entertaining_  than I’d imagined.”

John wanted to reach out and touch him. He wanted to see what he actually looked like with his hands. He wanted to know if this sort of thing was allowed. How it felt. But the last rational part of his brain told him that sooner or later, they’d get out of this closet, and he needed to at least not die of embarrassment for the moment before they turned their backs on each other.

“I’ll say,” John managed, and for a moment, he felt Sherlock grin against him, his lips briefly brushing his cheek.

Suddenly, Sherlock pulled back. A moment later, John heard why. There were footsteps approaching. “You know,” Sherlock said brightly, “I think this flat-sharing thing will work out splendidly. Don’t you?”

“Flat-sharing?”

“Oh, yes,” Sherlock replied off-handedly. “Isn’t that why you went to lunch with Mike in the first place? I told him this morning I had a difficult time finding anyone I could stand living with. Next thing he traps me in a closet with an old friend who’s just returned from military service, looking for a place to stay.”

John let out a laugh and shook his head. But before he could say anything, the steps approached. “John? Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Mike’s voice rang out. He heard the jangle of a key-ring.

Suddenly, the door was unlocked and pulled open. Sherlock somehow managed not to fall backwards and stepped out of the cupboard gracefully. John picked himself up from the wall he’d been pressed against and sighed.

Sherlock turned to Mike. “Yes, he’ll do,” he said with a wink and turned to leave.

John stumbled after him. “Wait, what?”

Sherlock stepped back and leaned into his personal space again. “That was fun,” Sherlock murmured quietly. “We should do that again sometime.”

“But—“

“Got my eyes on a nice little place in central London, we ought to be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow evening seven o'clock.”

John suddenly felt the embarrassment rush up at the same time as a hopeful kind of excited. “We've only just met, and we're going to go and look at a flat?” He couldn’t help but notice that Sherlock picked up on his utter excitement and smirked.

“Problem?”

“I—I don’t even know the address.”

“221B Baker Street,” Sherlock said with a grin. “Now I’ve got to dash, I left my riding crop in the mortuary. Afternoon.”

John stared after the madman as he strode out of the lab, his coat flaring after him. Yes, he was as attractive as he'd thought.

“Yeah, he’s always like that,” Mike said with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about the closet thing.”

“Actually, that’s all right,” John grinned and huffed out a little laugh. “I think it did me a world of good.”

 


End file.
